“The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery.”
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 102
Context: When Christianity becomes conscious of its innermost nature, it realizes that it is godliness rising our of inward constraint. The highest knowledge is to know that we are surrounded by mystery. Neither knowledge nor hope for the future can be the pivot of our life or determine its direction. It is intended to be solely determined by our allowing ourselves to be gripped by the ethical God, who reveals Himself in us, and by our yielding our will to His.
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Albert Schweitzer126
French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosoph… 1875–1965Related quotes
Huston Smith book The World's Religions
Part of this quote may actually be by Ralph Washington Sockman.
The World's Religions (1991)
Source: Beyond the Post-Modern Mind: The Place of Meaning in a Global Civilization
Context: In mysteries what we know, and our realization of what we do not know, proceed together; the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. It is like the quantum world, where the more we understand its formalism, the stranger that world becomes.
“The mystery surrounding Garbo was as thick as a London fog.”
Greta Garbo (1905–1990) Swedish-American actress
Tallulah Bankhead, Tallulah: My Autobiography (1952), ch. 9, p. 172: Duels with the Screen
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician
Speech to the British Association (6 August 1894), quoted in The Times (9 August 1894), p. 6
1890s
B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist
Contingencies of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis (1969).
Source: Contingencies Of Reinforcement: A Theoretical Analysis
“We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”
Carl Sagan book Cosmos
Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 4
Context: The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.
“We cannot know the mystery of the future.”
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Variant: We cannot ignore our gift of the future.
Source: Just Peace: A Message of Hope
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 304